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Ephedra restoration experiment

I want to get some Ephedra shrubs growing again up at Panoche Hills, but it is definitely not an easy thing to accomplish. Even if miraculously some plants survive, the K.rats seem to finish them off.

This doesn’t mean I’m giving up! Currently in our greenhouse I have a sand gradient with Ephedra plants and shading shelters. I should have the results from that project by next week.

In the field I have 50 plots with three different treatments to mimic the mechanisms of facilitation that occur between plants. This includes adding burlap for shading, adding water bottles for irrigation-soil moisture and Amanda’s idea of activated carbon to sequester nitrogen from the soil in the hopes to reduce non-native competitors.

Fingers crossed we can derive a way to increase shrub recruitment at Panoche Hills.